Campaign dynamic: Race throws up frontrunner; frontrunner attacked and trashed in press; frontrunner fades and is replaced by new frontrunner; lather and repeat.

Once upon a time, I thought this was a dumb system; why don’t we have a national primary and be done with it? And while that has many advantages (campaign finance reform not the least among them), I now see benefits to the primary unsystem: It is the gauntlet though which candidates must go not only with media (who so far have been wrong about whom we like) but with the voters. Oh, sure, it’s not a real test of Presidential qualifications. But it does bring out the worst in the candidates before it’s too late. And it gives us time to make our own decisions.